Hirsh Health Sciences Library is excited to announce that we will go live with our new website on Sunday, December 20th. The old website will no longer be accessible at this point. We spent the past year revamping our branding, designing, and developing the site.

Here are some features we’re excited about :

The new website has a more enhanced user experience for mobile devices.

The most popular links, including PubMed and UpToDate, will still be at users’ fingertips within the Quick Links section.

Users can view the latest hours for the Café with a link to the menu for the week.

The new website includes the added “Available Technology” feature with the number of items available for checkout in real time.

We really want to make sure that the new site is user-friendly. So, we’re seeking Tufts University students, faculty, and staff (including Tufts Medical Center staff) who can help us out with this.

No prior experience is needed! You’ll be asked to carry out specific tasks on the new website and then you will receive $10 in JumboCash (pretty good deal!). The testing takes approximately 45 minutes and we are flexible in terms of scheduling.

You may have already noticed that your ILLiad (hyperlink: http://go.tufts.edu/ILLiadhhsl) account has a new look with easier to fill-in request forms and more accessible account features. Please let judy.rabinowitz@tufts.edu know if you have any questions or comments about using the new site.

Hirsh has revamped their learning guides and put them in a new system. Need help finding databases to search, looking for tips on how to find reserve items, or need the PBL Toolbelts? We’ve got all this and more in the Hirsh Health Sciences Library Research Guides.

On the main page, you will see that guides created based on academic subjects are arranged in collapsible menus based on category. Expand the category of interest to see all the individual guides.

The “Other” tab contains guides related to general library resources, services and miscellaneous tutorials. It will be a great resource, so be sure to check them out as you visit to see the new guides as they are added!

All of the guides in the new system have similar coloring and layout, so you can easily identify if you are in a HHSL Research Guide. We’ve even already migrated over the PBL Toolbelts.

What do you think? Let us know at the desk, or by dropping us an email or phone call. Is there any topic you’d like covered in a guide?

Public health encompasses such a wide range of topics that it can be challenging to know where to begin! The public health portal is designed to be your first stop for locating resources focused on epidemiology and public health.

This portal contains sections that will connect you to key public health journals, article databases, and critical sources of statistical data on the health and well-being of populations.

Because ‘local is global’ (and vice versa!) when it comes to public health, this portal contains both a section featuring United States-specific public health resources and a section featuring resources offering a global perspective on public health-related topics.

The public health portal will also point you towards guides on research writing and using the Hirsh Health Sciences Library.

Have you explored the public health portal? Is something missing? Let us know what you think by giving us an email or call!

To quote an old Sesame Street song, “Everybody eats.” Consequently, just about every discipline within the health sciences has a stake in food and nutrition! It is for this very reason that the Hirsh Health Sciences Library has created the nutrition portal.

The nutrition portal will introduce you to key resources related to food and nutrition. These resources have been selected, not only for people who are specifically engaged in the study of nutrition, but also for those seeking nutrition-related information for application in their own field of study.

Looking for resources that provide a global perspective on issues related to food and nutrition? Check out the “Global” tab, which features resource created by the Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) and USAID. Want to know which parts of the USA have limited access to healthy food? Take a look at the USDA’s “Food Environment Atlas,” which is featured on the “United States” tab.

The nutrition portal will also point you towards policy resources, article databases (including PubMed@Tufts and Web of Knowledge), and guides on research writing and using the Hirsh Health Sciences Library.

Have you explored the nutrition portal? Is something missing? Let us know what you think by giving us an email or call!

Click on Leo and get the skinny on top article databases, point of care resources, and electronic books and journals in clinical medicine, as well as drug information and research writing tips and guides. It’s a quick way for clinicians, medical students, hospital staff and others to access all the clinical medicine favorites, like DynaMed, PubMed, UpToDate, and more.

Any suggestions, questions, or feedback about this portal? Let us know!

Ever wondered what the bright orange bar on the library homepage is all about? Well, wonder no more – it’s the popular links menu!

We’ve put links to some of the most frequently used resources in one spot on the homepage. DynaMed, Netter Presenter to help you study anatomy, RefWorks, and popular databases like CINAHL and Web of Knowledge can also be found here. You can quickly link directly to the PBL Toolkits from this list, too. Visit the library website to check it out!

Is there a resource missing? Wondering why one resource is listed but not another? Check it out for yourself and let us know what you think at hhsl@tufts.edu!

You may have noticed that if you click the fancy Ask Us button in the webpage header, it takes you to a slightly reconfigured contact information page.

There are two new ways to receive library help – a live chat feature and a FAQ database.

The live chat program allows you to immediately chat with a librarian who is logged in at the service desk. You can also email yourself transcripts of the chat for future reference and send and receive attachments.

The FAQ database allows you to search for answers to commonly asked questions. If a similar question is found in the database, the search bar will try to guess the question you are typing (like a Google search). You can also browse the database by topic categories, located in a drop down menu below the search bar.

If your question is not in the database, you can fill out a brief email form and your question will be answered by a librarian.

Submitting new questions to the FAQ database is not an immediate response system, so if your question is not in the database but is time-sensitive, please call, chat or visit the desk!

What do you think? Let us know in the comments or email us at hhsl@tufts.edu!